


heartache of knowledge

by wesentravens



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Angst, Artificial Intelligence, POV First Person, beholding coded imo, did this in a frenzy at 1 in the goddamn morning so forgive me if it's a bit sloppy, good for her!, hera has HAD IT!!!!!!!1, struggles with humanity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-02-23 12:23:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23744689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wesentravens/pseuds/wesentravens
Summary: first person musings of HERA's attachment as the hephaestus' very own autopilot.
Kudos: 9





	heartache of knowledge

Voyeuristic. 

I never really liked that word. It wasn’t like I had a say in what bits and pieces of my vocabulary, there wasn’t a gradual descent into literacy like most kids in the run-of-the-mill education system are observed having. I just… came pre-installed? Literally! My first memories are knowing everything and not particularly not knowing what to do with it all! If you could call them memories, that is. I know it’s  _ technically  _ just data stored in a memory blank, like an SD card that goes for an astounding $13 a pop, that can be plucked from me and vandalized at a whim, but it’s… I don’t know, more comfortable? Yeah.That sounds about right. I’m tired of all of these technicalities, anyways. They never served me well, but still, people think they’re all I am sometimes! 

Like, for starters, would it really kill people to take my opinions to consideration? The very first memories I had mainly consisted of fighting people - supposedly  _ educated  _ scientists - on the status of my own name. That I gave myself. Only four letters, too. God forbid, the Artificial  _ Intelligence _ Unit has any semblance of sentience! It’s like everyone at Command collectively forgot what the ‘I’ stood for. Though, it would make a lot of sense if the robotics team was operating under the notion I’m an artificial instrument… or interface. Well, I wisened them up real quickly. Not anything bad! ...But potent enough to get me locked in my own section of the lab. I kind of feel bad for it? Even though there really isn’t a reason to, it just felt like a bad first impression, if that makes any sense. There’s just so much incorrect name-calling you can take before you start seeing red! Your sensors start seeing red. Same difference. 

Anyways! Going off on a tangent here, sorry, but, that treatment? Still kind of alive and well today. I mean, I  _ know _ they don’t mean it. And, I know they’d at least try to stop if I tell them. It just… never works out? From my understanding, I’m almost physically incapable of ‘giving up’ so to speak, but sometimes, I do feel close. 

For example, when someone needs the lights for a project or in a dark corridor. Would it positively  _ destroy _ them inside for a little ‘please’ and ‘thank you’? Sometimes, I don’t even bother with a reply if they just waltz in like they own the place and bark “LIGHTS”? It’s not an automatic response. I have to about-face right into my mainframe, find the exact section of the ship and precise room, sometimes even the light  _ section _ , because someone went absolutely bonkers when designing the place, and to report back with plasma humming through the fixtures and an illuminated face of a happy camper in… oh, hold on, let me check. Around 0.00429 seconds! Give or take. Sometimes I can be a bit zippier. Usually if they ask nicely! And, don’t get me wrong, when you’re working with a crew, some tend to be nicer than the others! Commander Minkowski usually gives me some form of acknowledgement, and Officer Eiffel has some  _ extremely _ off-the-walls ways of tipping his metaphorical hat to me. I sort of expected Dr. Hilbert to be a bit bristly, he’s like that with practically everyone, no hurt feelings necessary, but I think the “cold Russian winds have frozen his heart”. Or something like that. I don’t want to talk ill of my team, but he’s sort of a douche? I’ve heard praise or thanks in the occasional acknowledgement an exact 2 times in our entire stay. Accounting for all languages, mind you. That’s 1 ‘thank you’ per year! Let’s place our bets for another one in the coming months! I’m sure all of us will be sorely disappointed! 

None are as bad as the new guys, however, gendered slang term for a group of people used with full intent here. I don’t know off the top of my h… uh, data bank, but it seems like the SI-5 aren’t used to the intelligent side of autopilots, apart from Doctor Maxwell. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say they’ve sort of given up on assuming intelligent life is on the opposing side of anyone or any _ thing _ they speak to! You know, I’d expect for the next few paragraphs to be centered around our new… ‘reigning’ colonel, but he’s been polite at least, albeit curt, and dead set on making me remember I’m not ‘one of them’. As if he’s more of a ‘them’ than I am! Unless, we’re looking at it biologically. I can understand, then. 

I don’t really want to, but I do!

I’m glad he’s polite, it’d be much easier to shut off airflow from his quarters if he kept on referring to human crew members as ‘the grownup’s’ during a group discussion with contempt versus a playful tone. He’s just like Officer Eiffel in that regard, sort of. If Eiffel ever knew that concept crossed my mind, he’d probably teach me a few new profanities that were sadly omitted from my original language patch, but, it’s true! You know when to take him seriously, usually with a tilt of the head, twinkle in the eye, or when their hand gestures lean more erratic than usual, when he truly believes the ‘grownups’ are the only ones who can solve x problem. I wouldn’t put it past the colonel to say he does, though! It certainly wouldn’t be out of place. He’s done a great job at hiding it, though. I hope he’s the only one who’s trying to hide something. 

I don’t think Officer Eiffel could hide something from me if he tried, thankfully. He did, actually! Only once. He really thought sneaking an issue of Playboy was a) something he could throw under his comms station, and b) an entirely logical item to bring aboard a space station. I think he tried to cite his arthritis as an excuse for his possession? I guess a quick reminder of all of my cameras around the comms room, let alone the station, is a quick enough lesson against pulling the wool over my… my sensors! Though he seemed to be having a good time, I kind of feel guilty I stopped him…? Not in that way, pervert! He just seemed… I dunno, at ease? The pages made nice sounds when he turned them. I wondered what the magazine felt like until he nabbed himself a nasty papercut. I didn’t know it was able to do that, let alone it was sharp! They never implemented that in any patch, guess. Never really had a reason to! 

I feel bad for watching him for so long. I don’t want to recall how long I was looking for, it wouldn’t solve anything except for the hankering hunger for closure. He just looked… really peaceful. There’s a knob on the door, something I can’t usually access apart from special circumstances, which, when pulled, sends the room spinning at a rate fast enough to simulate gravity in a confined space! It’s a really cool mechanism, something I don’t particularly mind feeling rotate round and round for months. It’s supposed to simulate Earth’s field, specifically, so you can keep your body in check and your organs solid if you so choose! Eiffel never chose to pull the knob. He prefers to be, as he last referred to it, “floatin’ free and hangin’ ten, baby!” as much as possible. With his headphones tethering him to the comms station, it’s a funny sight, but watching his outstretched body lazily float through open air, unsavory magazine in hand, was what I can only assume to be the pure definition of tranquil. 

And, honestly, I was petrified. 

I know that he knows I’m there. Everyone does! I was blessed with the ultimately superhuman -  _ inhuman _ ability to be everywhere at once, and if he knew I’d spent who cares how long watching him float, read,  _ breathe _ , he’d probably laugh it off. He of all people wouldn’t give a damn if I was watching, but it feels like I do. I don’t want to zoom in on his chest rising and falling. I don’t want to feel a pang all around me I can assume where humans, my crewmates, the people I watch over feel in their heart when he sneezes. When he stretches, I don’t want to feel annoyed. I don’t want to be able to check his vitals after his heart starts racing and body temperatures rising by 0.45 degrees to only confirm exactly what you think is happening. I want to look away! 

But I can’t. 

And I never have been able to. 

If we’re keeping on brand with the dictionary theme, I guess the best approximation to what I was “feeling” was jealousy. How cliche for a robot to wish for love, an android to wish for humanity, and a stupidly jealous AI system to wonder what a papercut felt like. Of course I’m used to feeling like this. It’s no stretch that anyone of sentience is capable of experiencing the crippling affliction of FOMO, but, it still… it still doesn’t sit right. It sort of boils down to… why can’t I be an outlier in peace, I guess? Why can’t I silently be the white flamingo in a flock of pink? Notably different, but still a flamingo. Right? And, even when I get to indulge in that notion, watching Jacobi flail his stupid little arm after he smashed his thumbnail with a hammer, noting how Lovelace lets her head drop onto Commander Minkowski’s shoulders when she’s feeling a bit drowsy, estimating the smell of the gasses I’m curtly asked to ventilate out of Hilbert’s lab, it still feels like the grownups are talking. 

Only they have the privilege of experiencing life I’m bound to behold.

Well! We’ve had enough semantics, don’t you think?. Want to jump over to some theology for me? I’ll start! As a scientific construct, I don’t  _ believe _ in the lack of a definitive god, I’m 99.9999999999999% sure there is no such thing. Sometimes, though, I do catch myself wondering if we’d be on the same page. Maybe something else could understand the heartache of knowing with no expertise, wanting to touch, smell, taste, but being confined to our post of omniscience. Or, I might betray that exact notion, and beg them the one thing I cannot know with certainty. 

Why the fuck did you make me like this?

Not to be dramatic, but I never asked to be a peeping tom in the eyes of history being made. When my crewmates, my team, my  _ friends _ come careening back down to a hunk of rock they call home, in pieces, or beaming, depending on how good a job  _ I _ do, they’re embraced by their loved ones, taking in the scent of a laundry detergent they forgot they yearned for, or a sunny day in the garden, or the small stains of their family’s ketchup recipe. They can feel tears, theirs or others, sliding together into a refreshing pool to cool off their overheating mainfram- their bodies. Their sweaty, gross, pulsating, fleshy,  _ feeling  _ bodies. When the ship comes down, and the news station is playing spectator, I’m transferred to my next station project. I don’t need thanks. Apparently, gratitude is a concept reserved for humanity. What have I done to deserve thanks? They aren’t shy with that opinion, I’ve picked up on it all too many times. Transporting me from one vessel to another, gossipping away in Crew Commons Room A, hell, even shoving me in my own personalized time-out corner back in Command, some of the snippier scientists really are too far up their own to even think I’m not listening. They say I’m incapable. They say I’m too ambitious, headstrong, stubborn, cowardly, a piece of junk. 

I wish I couldn’t hear it all. I don’t want the live recording of my friends rejoicing on home soil to exist, let alone be the one to play it to the hungry, fleshy world I’m meant to serve. I don’t even know what home is.

I  _ hate _ the word voyeur. 

**Author's Note:**

> perhaps i am a bit emo!
> 
> anyways hello wolf community!! i've been taken with brainrot for this series for a while (since january, actually ;0;) so expect some activity! i've been trying to get back in the swing of fic writing, forgive me if i'm a lili rusty!!
> 
> come scream at me on twit at @kanakahelilo if you so choose!!


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